MACC Exhibit: He Makana, Oct. 15 – Dec. 23

The Gertrude Mary Joan Damon Haig Collection of Hawaiian Art will be on display at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s Schaefer International Gallery between Oct. 15 and Dec. 23, 2017.

Hitchcock D Howard. Hawaiian Boy in Canoe oil on canvas – Photo Courtesy MACC

The exhibit features a distinguished collection of 42 works of traditional Hawaiian crafts, paintings, and prints.

He Makana, meaning “a gift” in the Hawaiian language, was given to the State of Hawai‘i through the Hawai‘i State Art Museum in honor of the life of Mary Joan Damon Haig, by her son Michael Haig.

Gertrude Mary Joan Haig was born in Moanalua Valley on July 23, 1920. She was the daughter of Henry Fowler and Gertrude McKinnon Damon, and the granddaughter of Honolulu banker, Samuel Mills Damon, developer of the large Moanalua agricultural and horticultural estate.

The collection has been compiled over the last thirty years and includes three exceptional paintings that predate 1900.

Focused from its inception, the assemblage concentrates on the three ‘giants’ of century island painting: Lionel Walden, D. Howard Hitchcock, and Madge Tennent. All three were academically trained in Paris, Hitchcock and Tennent even in the same atelier. All three have left firm imprints on all subsequent island art.

Within the collection is a group of rare objects that are traditional art forms of Hawai‘i including ancient ko‘u calabashes, native Hawaiian feather works, an ahu ‘ula cape and Ni‘ihau shell leis.

The items are rare and unique to Polynesia. Both feather garments and leis were strictly reserved for the ali‘i (chiefly class), until the great period of cape making ebbed at the time of Kamehameha I’s death in 1891. The four ‘umeke bowls, carved of ko‘u wood, but largely plugged with gum from the breadfruit plant, are also extremely rare today.

The Schaefer International Gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., as well as before select Castle Theater shows.

There is no admission charge.

Gallery information is available at the MACC website.

The gallery will be closed Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 23, and Saturday, Dec. 2.